Chapter 946: Heavy-Armored Iron Cavalry!

Siniang wrung out a hot towel and handed it over.

Zheng Fan took it, wiped his face first, then his hands.

Several piles of memorials sat before him.

Fortunately, with Siniang and the Blind Man helping, logistical military affairs could be delegated entirely to them.

Zheng Fan needed only to focus on military matters.

In the past, every time the army marched out, at least two Demon Kings had to remain behind and guard the household.

That was no longer necessary.

A group of “second-echelon” officials led by Sun Ying, Chen Daole, and He Chunlai had already matured enough to shoulder real responsibility.

Xiong Liqing and Yuexin could supervise matters as well.

Farther away, Xu Wenzu would continuously channel everything needed from central Jin, western Jin, and the Yan heartland toward eastern Jin.

At home, people could receive those supplies and allocate them wherever they were required.

In short... they could free their hands as much as possible and face the war that was now approaching.

The carriage continued onward.

The Prince’s banner fluttered above it.

At this moment, across eastern Jin, hundreds of thousands of people—combat soldiers, laborers, auxiliaries—were gathering, moving, and being assigned beneath that banner.

And this... was only the first wave.

“I heard Tian Tian killed one of the Hailan family’s boys?” Zheng Fan asked casually.

The Blind Man answered:

“Yes.”

“Exactly as the memorial says?”

“Yes.”

This was not exactly a small matter.

Hailande had held an official post of his own.

It was nothing like the proper service his two elder brothers had once performed among the Prince’s personal guards, but he still possessed a recognized position.

The difference was somewhat like the distinction, years ago, between Zheng Fan’s Merchant-Protection Lieutenant post and a true Lieutenant’s commission in the Zhenbei Army.

For someone like that to be executed under military law... reports from every relevant side were unavoidable.

There were four in total.

One came from Chen Xianba.

He had been the officer responsible for receiving this force of Savage auxiliaries and was also the highest-ranking commander present at the time.

His report affirmed Tian Tian’s action.

One came from Tian Tian himself.

That memorial mainly recounted what had happened and explained why he had chosen to execute Hailande immediately.

One came from the Brocade-Clad personal guards present at the scene.

Over the years, those guards had long since become more than merely the Prince’s close protection.

Outwardly, little had changed.

In practice, however... they had already begun carrying out some of the functions of a Brocade-Clad Guard intelligence service.

The final report came from the Hailan Tribe itself.

Its chieftain, Hailan Yanggu, submitted the memorial personally.

And the supposed injured party’s own side... spent the memorial cursing his dead youngest son.

Absurd.

Hateful.

Sinful beyond description.

A criminal whose crimes exhausted the bamboo slips.

If he had not died, military law could not stand.

If he had not died, the army’s morale could not be pacified.

Executed well.

Executed wonderfully.

Reading it, one would think that if Tian Tian had not killed the boy, Hailan Yanggu himself had already been itching to slaughter his youngest son.

The Hailan Tribe’s response was completely normal.

To put it unpleasantly... what status did Tian Tian possess?

What status had Hailande possessed?

Go one step farther.

What did the entire Hailan Tribe amount to compared with Tian Tian?

Never mind killing him under military law.

Even if Tian Tian had truly slaughtered him merely to vent personal anger... what qualification would the Hailan Tribe possess to cry grievance before the Prince?

Zheng Fan smiled.

“At first, I wondered whether Hailan Zhong was playing some borrowed-knife murder trick.”

Hailan Yanggu had three sons.

His eldest and second sons had both been sent to Zheng Fan in the early years and served among the Brocade-Clad personal guards.

They had been given the names Hailan Zhong and Hailan Cheng.

Hailan Cheng still held office in Fengxin City.

After his health later developed problems, he had largely left the army and moved into civil administration.

The Standard-Household Yamen needed one or two officials of Savage origin placed inside it.

Hailan Cheng was one of them.

As for Hailan Zhong... two years earlier, he had been sent back to the snowfields.

He was essentially the designated successor to the Hailan Tribe.

The reason Zheng Fan had suspected him was simple.

By old snowfield custom, it should have been the youngest son who remained behind to inherit the household.

The elder sons were instead sent outward to fight, compete, and carve out more living space for the tribe.

As Hailan Yanggu’s body grew weaker and weaker, perhaps Hailan Zhong had found this younger brother obstructive.

Send him into the pass.

Arrange something quietly.

Borrow another man’s blade to kill him.

The logic seemed plausible enough.

Mostly...

Zheng Fan had simply become too accustomed to conspiracy theories.

His mind habitually searched for hidden hands.

The Blind Man smiled.

“There should not be any deeper story. Hailan Zhong spent time at Master’s side, after all. This subordinate also disciplined him personally. Never mind the fact that he already controls most of the Hailan Tribe’s real authority and has nearly hollowed out his father’s power. Even if he truly wanted to borrow a knife to kill someone, he would never dare borrow the Residence’s knife. If he really wanted help dealing with some burden inside the tribe, it would be easier to write us a letter and state the matter openly.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

“I overthought it. I’m actually not used to this anymore. Somehow, among all the memorials placed in front of me... there appeared one completely pure... idiot.”

So stupid it felt genuine.

So stupid it felt clean.

Even... so stupid it became pitiful.

A tribal Young Master died because of a few extra steamed buns.

Stuffed ones, yes.

But still... it was almost impossible to understand.

The Blind Man said:

“Master, no matter what age you live in, those who understand when to advance and retreat, recognize circumstances, and grasp the larger situation will always be a minority. Idiots will always be the majority. Besides, with Master’s present position, anyone capable of reaching you—or whom you yourself would meet—is usually already an outstanding person among men. Ordinary idiots rarely get the chance to show their faces in front of Master. And what Hailande wanted was never truly those extra buns. He had grown too accustomed to being above others. Even if the entire Hailan Tribe is only a dog our Residence has chained out on the snowfields, it is still one of the largest tribes there now. The buns were secondary. What mattered was arrogance. He crossed the line. And unfortunately for him... he did not possess the status required to cross that line.”

Zheng Fan raised one brow.

“Blind Man, that sounded suspiciously like sarcasm aimed at me.”

“This subordinate would not dare. Back then, arrogant though we were, proud though we were, before our strength matured, Master knelt more than a few times. And when we acted, we did not dare step beyond the line.”

If anyone else exposed embarrassing old stories in front of a superior like this, the result would probably be ugly.

One need only think of those old villagers who came to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang after the uprising and began loudly recounting the days when everyone had once been commoners together.

The Blind Man was different.

When he and Zheng Fan discussed such things... it could only be called remembering the turbulent years of youth.

“At the end of the day, men like that father and son from the Empress’s family—the kind who know their place and understand proportion—are rare among the rare. Most people who suddenly rise to a high position find it very difficult not to float away. This incident came at a good time. Someone voluntarily sent us a head to sacrifice before the banner. Saves us the trouble of finding one.”

Zheng Fan rubbed between his brows.

“Hailan Yanggu is old. Hailan Zhong is still young. Tell me... are we going to raise another Savage King?”

“Master, do you lack confidence in Xianba? Or in Tian Tian? Take another ten thousand steps back... we still have Lin’er.”

Zheng Fan chuckled.

“Yes, yes. The next generation has already grown up. That means we can finally loosen our hands and play properly.”

Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings had never truly thought much about founding some eternal dynasty lasting ten thousand generations.

But if the foundation they had built simply scattered the moment they died... that would still feel like a waste.

They had, after all, developed some attachment to it.

Fortunately... the next generation was growing with astonishing strength.

Succession was not something they needed to worry about.

Chen Xianba valued heroic spirit.

In a certain sense... he was closer than anyone else to another version of Prince Jingnan.

In the prophecy, he had led troops that shattered Qian, reduced Great Qian into Southern Qian, then ultimately died fighting for Yan.

Now he had spent many years being raised at Zheng Fan’s side.

There was no problem with his character.

As for Tian Tian... there was even less possibility of any problem.

And that brat at home... although Zheng Fan, as a father, clearly preferred his daughter to his son, one thing could not be denied.

That son of his... would never willingly take a loss.

The carriage stopped.

Zheng Fan rose, lifted the curtain, and stepped outside.

Beside the road...

Hailan Yanggu and Hailan Zhong knelt.

Hailan Yanggu was ill.

He could barely maintain his posture without leaning against his son.

Hailan Zhong’s lips were pale, dry, and cracked.

He had obviously been kneeling there for a long time.

The moment the Prince appeared, Hailan Yanggu forced himself upright and kowtowed.

“Your Highness... this slave failed to teach his son. This slave begs Your Highness to punish him.”

Hailan Zhong slammed one fist against his own chest.

“Your Highness, this subordinate is willing to demote himself into the penal troops and serve as Your Highness’s vanguard!”

Looking at father and son...

Zheng Fan felt very little pity.

He slowly adjusted the cuffs of his robe.

“Enough. Go do whatever you should be doing. This Prince is not that idle. I have no interest in standing here rambling with the two of you. Hailan Yanggu.”

“This slave is here.”

“Go back and take proper care of your illness. Don’t drag yourself out here just to see this Prince and then conveniently die on the road. Whether the snowfield tribes feel some grief over the death of one rabbit when another dies does not concern me. I simply do not want to feel disgusted by it myself.”

“This slave understands. This slave will take care of his health.”

“Hailan Zhong.”

“This subordinate is here!”

“Go back and manage your Hailan Tribe properly. Next, this Prince will continue drawing Savage auxiliary troops from the snowfields and bringing them through the pass to fight. If anything else goes wrong... bring me your own head.”

“This subordinate obeys!”

Zheng Fan waved one hand.

“This slave withdraws!”

“This subordinate withdraws!”

After dismissing the Hailan father and son, Zheng Fan ordered the men around him:

“Go directly to Zhennan Pass. No more delays.”

“Yes!”

...

Qin Dayong’s unit had already moved into the Zhennan Pass region.

He had no idea that only a short distance away, his two younger brothers had recently experienced anything unusual at all.

There were too many men in the army.

Unless one possessed a certain level of position and status... finding a specific person was extremely difficult.

The Assistant General issued the order.

Troops assembled.

Men mounted.

Formations were drawn up.

Rumors had already begun spreading through the army that the Prince had arrived at Zhennan Pass.

Qin Dayong drew a deep breath.

The previous days of mustering, combined with the marching afterward, had already drawn him fully into his present identity.

Ahead stood a tall review platform.

Three great banners flew above it.

Great Yan’s Black Dragon Banner.

Eastern Jin’s Double-Headed Eagle Banner.

And the Prince’s Banner.

“Everyone sharpen up! Don’t embarrass our Southwest District!”

“Sharpen up! Dress the ranks! Dress them! Dress them!”

“Did you hear me? Chest out! Head up! Let the Prince see what we look like!”

The eastern Jin army did not possess entrenched commander factions.

The Standard-Household system in particular had weakened, as much as possible, any chance for a general to treat troops as his private soldiers.

Five years earlier, the Prince had personally traveled to Snow Sea Pass and removed its Chief Commander Keyan Dongge on the spot.

That had been the clearest example.

Over the years, as every system became more complete, military authority had concentrated even further.

Standard Households were loyal to the Residence.

Standard-Household soldiers naturally remained loyal to the Residence as well.

But even without “commander factions,” Standard-Household soldiers still possessed a strong sense of regional identity.

It was not divided primarily by ethnicity.

Those ethnic lines had already been deliberately broken apart during resettlement.

Whose settlement had no Savage households?

Whose settlement had no Barbarian households?

And never mind Yan people, Jin people, or Chu people.

So what men talked about instead... was district.

Snow Sea Pass formed one district.

Zhennan Pass formed another.

The area around Fengxin City formed another.

The Left and Right Generals each commanded their own districts.

And the four largest regions were actually the four great military-agricultural settlement zones radiating outward from Fengxin City in every direction.

At its core... this represented the breaking of ethnic boundaries and their replacement with a new collective identity.

Everyone understood what this gathering meant.

One glance was enough.

They were preparing for a grand review.

Lieutenants began shouting and cursing at their men, forcing every formation into its best condition.

The Prince himself would inspect them soon.

“Listen carefully! This is not a training muster! Not training! We are truly going to war! Anyone who turns coward can go rot on the flank! Our Southwest District is taking the main assault!”

Qin Dayong’s father had once said that during meetings in Fengxin City he had sensed war coming.

After Qin Dayong himself assembled, he saw unit after unit.

Banner after banner.

Then behind them... laborers constantly arriving.

Grain and military supplies moving on a massive scale.

By now... he too was certain.

War was coming.

And not one of those routine annual musters.

Not an expedition against some unruly Savage tribe in the snowfields.

Not a bandit-suppression campaign in the Tianduan Mountains.

Not exercises around Mount Meng.

A movement on this scale... meant a true great war.

The reason was simple.

Moving this many people and this much material cost far too much.

Unless they genuinely intended to fight at full scale... no one would ever pay that price.

“Advance!”

The Assistant General raised his saber.

The signal officer immediately transmitted the command downward.

Every Lieutenant repeated it through his formation.

Centurions broke it down again.

At the bottom, even File Leaders had to issue loud, clear orders to the men immediately beside them.

This was not needless complication.

Nor empty formalism.

The more complete an army’s organization at the grassroots level... the greater its fighting power in real war.

Why had early Qian armies performed so badly?

Because most commanders simply charged with their own household retainers.

The ordinary soldiers followed behind.

The moment the household troops at the front showed signs of collapse and began retreating... everyone else naturally broke with them.

During the second Battle of Wang River, Prince Jingnan had used Great Yan’s elite cavalry to divide the Savage King’s army across the frontal battlefield.

The first thing to collapse had not actually been Savage morale.

Gou Moli had stirred those men into roaring for blood.

Their morale was high.

What collapsed first... was command.

Once an army lost orientation in the chaos of battle, all the courage in the world became useless.

On a frontal battlefield, casualties of twenty or thirty percent were usually enough to approach complete collapse.

Whichever side could grit its teeth and endure slightly longer often gained an enormous advantage.

Battles where entire armies truly fought to total annihilation required unusual circumstances and terrain.

Qin Dayong’s formation began moving.

As neatly and solemnly as possible, they urged their horses forward across the open field before the review platform.

Qin Dayong glanced toward the platform.

He should have been able to see almost nothing.

Dust filled the air.

The distance was too great.

Yet in his mind... an enormous figure instantly appeared beneath the Prince’s Banner.

Once the circuit was complete, the formation returned to its position.

Qin Dayong felt their side had performed very well.

Until... another army passed directly before them.

Its banner read:

General of the Guards.

Eastern Jin possessed three supreme generalships.

Jin Shuke...

General of the Guards.

Li Chenghui...

General of Chariots and Cavalry.

Liang Cheng...

Grand General.

These three... could be called the three greatest pillars of eastern Jin’s military establishment.

Li Chenghui’s position carried some consideration for the fact that he had entered from outside.

More importantly, after his transfer into eastern Jin, he had cooperated completely and shown an exceptionally proactive attitude.

Under those circumstances, there was no reason the Residence would treat him poorly.

Most of all... after bringing a man such a great distance into your system, failing to give him a proper place would be unreasonable.

Jin Shuke’s troops were genuinely disciplined.

As they passed...

Qin Dayong had to admit it.

His own side was inferior to the General of the Guards’ men.

Then... the troops carrying the banner of the General of Chariots and Cavalry appeared.

This force descended from the old Zhenbei Army’s military settlements.

Although it had undergone Standard-Household reorganization, the Residence had preserved as much of its original structure as possible in order to maintain fighting power.

The average age of these soldiers was probably the highest among all units present.

No one dared look down on them.

Because on a battlefield... the most terrifying enemy was an old veteran.

Their formation did not deliberately pursue perfect neatness.

There was even a trace of looseness in the way they moved.

But the killing aura rolling off them... was astonishingly dense.

No one wanted to face such an opponent head-on.

They would calmly cut your formation apart, divide it, swallow it piece by piece.

Even if you wanted to find some chance to trade life for life... you still needed luck.

Qin Dayong unconsciously swallowed.

Because he stood near the front, he could see the Assistant General commanding his own formation.

The man’s expression had darkened.

The humiliation of being outclassed.

“Ten thousand victories!”

“Ten thousand victories!”

“Ten thousand victories!”

At that moment... three great roars came from the rear.

Qin Dayong instinctively turned.

Within formation, men were required only to preserve the ranks as much as possible.

Nobody demanded they remain completely motionless.

So the sound drew the attention of many formations at once.

High above them flew the banner:

Grand General.

Qin Dayong knew that beneath the Prince, the foremost military figure in eastern Jin was this Grand General.

Rumor said he had followed the Prince from extremely early on... and had received the Prince’s own true transmission in military science.

Ahead... a man riding a Pi Beast raised a long saber.

Then cut it downward.

“Eastern Jin iron cavalry... advance!”

“HU!”

“HU!”

“HU!”

In the next instant... a roar like the shaking of the earth surged forward.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

A formation of heavily armored cavalry began accelerating in rhythm beneath the guiding command banner.

The oppressive, vast aura that accompanied their appearance taught every person present what suffocating despair truly felt like.

Qin Dayong’s hands... began trembling uncontrollably.

On a battlefield... who could face a force like this?

There was no doubt at all.

Anything that dared stand in front of those heavy riders... would be crushed into dust in an instant.

...

On the high platform... the Blind Man stepped forward and quietly spoke beside Zheng Fan.

“Master, these are the three thousand heavy-armored cavalry A’Cheng personally built.”

Siniang stood nearby in magnificent robes, accompanying the Prince during the review in her capacity as Princess Consort.

She smiled.

“Very expensive.”

Forget the soldiers’ specially made armor.

Forget the horses’ specially made armor.

The specialized weapons.

The logistical ratio.

The selection standards for the men.

One needed only look at the mounts.

So many Pi Beasts stood among them.

That alone revealed what it meant to pile genuine gold and silver into an elite force.

No... not merely gold and silver.

Without the court’s cooperation and the Residence’s relationship with Yanjing, it could not have been built at all.

This was an elite among elites created by pouring blood into the project.

A true battlefield killing weapon of the age.

Even Sha Tuo Queshi at his absolute peak... if he had faced this cavalry before Marquis Zhenbei Residence back then... would probably have gotten exactly the death he wanted within moments.

Liang Cheng pointed his saber forward.

“Charge!”

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The thunder of hooves abruptly accelerated.

The terrifying flood of heavy armor finally revealed its true ferocity.

The Prince standing on the high platform had sharp eyes.

He seemed to see... something equally ferocious.

A’Cheng’s face.

That face which should always have been cold and still as an ancient well.

But then again... while the other Demon Kings followed Zheng Fan into the capital...

A’Cheng had been drilling troops.

While the others followed Zheng Fan sightseeing through mountains and rivers...

A’Cheng had been drilling troops.

While the others followed Zheng Fan to advance their grades...

A’Cheng... had still been drilling troops.

If everything Zheng Fan had seen, heard, felt, and experienced since awakening in this world were painted into one enormous scroll... then A’Cheng had simply been absent from far too many scenes.

The Prince interrupted the two “household managers” beside him as they continued complaining about how much money A’Cheng had burned.

He sighed.

“Ah. Be a little nicer to A’Cheng.”

[End of Chapter 946]